American Crystal Sugar CEO anticipates deal to end lockout
December 2, 2011 at 5:07 am in Grand Forks Herald
Berg at annual meeting: Company, workers will ‘get over it’
American Crystal Sugar President and CEO David Berg talked Thursday about when not if the company will resolve differences with locked-out workers. Continue Reading
Berg’s handing the union an olive branch. The Company is wiling to make some concessions, as Berg said. But the union must reach the balanced center. Healthcare costs must be shared. If you don’t want healthcare, then don’t have it deducted from your payroll check. It’s that simple.
In respect to seniority and job assignments, contracting out positions, you can forget about that. ACS isn’t gonna give a inch. You want to stand your ground then where you at this time next year.
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What the sam hill for boy! Why should them hard working honest farmers who bust there backside want there company to give anymore? Plain as day to me. Them union bunch dont want to work. Aint no two ways bout it.
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tj, I believe you are wrong on several levels.
“They are easing up on negotiating because they are bleeding cash.” Checks to shareholders are coming out at a reasonable rate. Most co-ops don’t pay members when they are bleeding cash.
“They can’t find enough local people to take the positions they advertised in the paper.” My understanding is that they are limiting the local labor so they don’t get overwhelmed with new, untrained people. More will be hired each week until all of the labor is local.
“They want to get rid of Strom.” This is the company that got 5 factories running when the union labor refused to sign a new contract. I expect that ACS would recommend Strom to other businesses in the same situation.
“This is not an olive branch it is a plea for help.” I believe that this is purely an olive branch. ACS is going to be fine with or without union help.
“They are behind on processing beets.” TransSystems trucks are swarming the valley. If this is behind, I would hate to see the traffic when they are ahead.
“They have totes full of bad sugar sitting stacked high outside the EGF factory…” Really? Refined sugar is sitting outside? Think about how dumb you sound when you say this.
“They can’t keep the pulp dryers going.” This problem is older than the co-op. The profit is in the sugar, not in the pulp. It is sold for cattle feed.
“They want this solved before the farm bill of 2012 gets going.” If the union wants to kill the 2012 farm bill, 1,300 union jobs will be gone forever.
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Riskey=give me more, give me more, I’ll let my “brothers and sisters” sit out in the cold while I tell them lies and keep getting my union paycheck. ACS is sharing the profits with you, apparently a 17% raise is a slap in the face?? You want Bergs paycheck, prove your worth it and can do his job. You want the growers cut, rent some land and beet stock and get in the game. What more do you union people want? Wait, you want the owners to be working for you, you want the big pay without the risk because thats how life should be right?!?!?! It angers me to watch certain political figures and Riskey talk about how unfair this is when the data shows the workers getting a significant raise. I am learning something from this though, lie to peoples faces, just keep repeating it and they will believe it. Shame on you union!!
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The factories are running at full capacity just as they have last year. If someone complains about pulp outside a factory, i’ts common sight every year, so it’s no worry, often the presses arent even designed to handle all the pulp when the factory is running at or above capacity. it just doesn’t make sense to try and dry all that and it’s too expansive to dry all of it. I hope it’s the same contract with no changes… or maybe they should charge health insurance closer to every other business in the region.
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